Myths and Realities about Online Forums in Open Source Software Development: An Empirical Study

The use of free and open source software (OSS) is gaining momentum due to the ever increasing availability and use of the Internet. Organizations are also now adopting open source software, despite some reservations, in particular regarding the provision and availability of support. Some of the biggest concerns about free and open source software are post release software defects and their rectification, management of dynamic requirements and support to the users. A common belief is that there is no appropriate support available for this class of software. A contradictory argument is that due to the active involvement of Internet users in online forums, there is in fact a large resource available that communicates and manages the provision of support. The research model of this empirical investigation examines the evidence available to assess whether this commonly held belief is based on facts given the current developments in OSS or simply a myth, which has developed around OSS development. We analyzed a dataset consisting of 1880 open source software projects covering a broad range of categories in this investigation. The results show that online forums play a significant role in managing software defects, implementation of new requirements and providing support to the users in open source software and have become a major source of assistance in maintenance of the open source projects

Heterogeneous Inter-Organisational IT Innovation Creation: Institutional constraints in a public sector oriented market

This paper reports from a case study of an IT innovation consortium in the field of elderly home healthcare. The circumstance of the consortium we studied includes that it was comprised of small-to-medium sized enterprises and targeted a public sector oriented market. We present six institutional constraints facing the heterogeneous innovation collective in the innovation creation process: procurement boundary spanning, procurement tendering and contracts, operation boundary spanning, procurement rationales, market-driven development, development time misalignment. Three of these constraints have a high degree of novelty to the IS literature on innovation. Further, research focused on the field of IT for elderly home healthcare is addressing lack of widespread IT innovation diffusion by turning to user-centered design that emphasises user needs and usability evaluations. This sound approach needs to be complemented by studies that even more emphasise business conditions and commerciability evaluations at field-level; our study contributes in this regard

Research-in-Progress: Strategic Information Systems Planning in Saudi Arabian Educational Institutions

Strategic information systems planning (SISP) is important as it allows organizations to more effectively deploy information systems. Although this importance of SISP is brought to attention in the information systems literature, findings from several studies indicate the need for a holistic strategic plan for information technology in educational institutions. The literature also shows limited evidence of existing SISP influence in Arab countries. Therefore, the focus of this research-in-progress paper is on the current status of SISP in Saudi Arabian educational institutions. The theoretical background and the research instrument are presented here

Male Obesity and Reproductive Health

Obesity has reached epidemic proportions globally, and all this evidence suggests that the situation is likely to get worse ahead. A combination of an increasingly sedentary lifestyle and unfavorable diet in the western world has resulted in increasing numbers of overweight and obese children and adults. According to the WHO, approximately 1.6 billion adults were classed as being overweight and 400 million adults were obese in 2005. Also gaining attention is the reported decline in semen quality and male reproductive potential over the past 50 years. Surprisingly, such decreases have not been reported in regions where obesity is less prevalent. Since this decline in fertility has occurred in parallel with increasing rates of obesity, the possibility that obesity is a cause of male infertility and reduced fecundity should be addressed. Effects of obesity on female fertility have been studied extensively. Weight loss in anovulatory women restores fertility and increases the likelihood of ovulation and conception. In contrast to the extensive knowledge of the effects of obesity on female fertility, male factor infertility as a result of obesity has been overlooked, even after the discovery of a threefold increase in the incidence of obesity in patients with male factor infertility, demanding the concern over m ale obesity with respect to infertility

Chief Executive Officer/ Managing Director succession and value relevance of accounting numbers

Apart from Board of Director, top management, including Chief Executive Officer or Managing Director is also considered as an important governance mechanism of the firm. CEO plays a major role in managing and controlling business operations, thus his/her succession may significantly affect firm performance. This study aims to examine the effect of top management succession on share price. Past studies, which used the event-study methodology to evaluate immediate investors’ reactions towards top management succession had their observations done over limited time frame (window periods). Succession may impact the share price beyond the window period because the investors may use information obtained from financial statements to evaluate new top management capabilities. This study contributes to the literature by examining the effects of top management succession on share price at the end of financial years. Book value of equity per share (BE) and earnings per share (EPS) on share price is regressed at three different points of time; year of top management change (TMC), a year after top management change (TMC_1) and post occurrence years of top management change (TMC_C). Findings indicate that BE and EPS are value relevant. Findings also indicate that top management succession is not significantly related to changes in share price over a short period of time (transition year and a post transition year). However, over the longer period of time (TMC_C), our study indicates the top management succession is value relevant. Findings indicate that investors take a longer time to appreciate the new top management on their decision makings. Further analysis indicates that BE is regarded as value relevant by the investors after incorporating firm with outside successor; while EPS is value relevant for the firm with inside successor. This study supports the limited studies in Malaysia which indicate succession events have an implication on share price. Findings in this study may contribute towards strategic decision making in corporate management of public listed companies in Malaysia, specifically when board of directors are considering the top management replacement

Prediction-Based Channel Selection Prediction in Mobile Cognitive Radio Network

The emerging 5G wireless communications enabled diverse multimedia applications and smart devices in the network. It promises very high mobile traffic data rates, quality of service as in very low latency and improvement in user’s perceived quality of experience compared to current 4G wireless network. This encourages the increasing demand of significant bandwidth which results a significant urge of efficient spectrum utilization. In this paper, modelling, performance analysis and optimization of future channel selection for cognitive radio network by jointly exploiting both CR mobility and primary user activity to provide efficient spectrum access is studied.  The modelling and prediction method is implemented by using Hidden Markov Model algorithm. The movement of CR in wireless network yields location-varying spectrum opportunities. The current approaches in most literatures which only depend on reactive selection spectrum opportunities result of inefficient channel usages. Moreover, conventional random selection method tends to observe a higher handoff and operation delays in network performance.  This inefficiency can cause continuous transmission interruptions leading to the degradation of advance wireless services. This work goal is to improve the performance of CR in terms number of handoffs and operation delays. We perform simulation on our prediction strategy with a commonly used random sensing method with and without location. Through simulations, it is shown that the proposed prediction and learning strategy can obtain significant improvements in number of handoffs and operation delays performance parameters. It is also shown that future CR location is beneficial in increasing mobile CR performance. This study also shows that the number of primary user in the network and the PU protection range affect the performance of mobile CR channel selection for all methods

A review on short-term prediction of air pollutant concentrations

In the attempt to increase the production of the industrial sector to accommodate human needs; motor vehicles and power plants have led to the decline of air quality. The tremendous decline of air pollution levels can adversely affect human health, especially children, those elderly, as well as patients suffering from asthma and respiratory problems. As such, the air pollution modelling appears to be an important tool to help the local authorities in giving early warning, apart from functioning as a guide to develop policies in near future. Hence, in order to predict the concentration of air pollutants that involves multiple parameters, both artificial neural network (ANN) and principal component regression (PCR) have been widely used, in comparison to classical multivariate time series. Besides, this paper also presents comprehensive literature on univariate time series modelling. Overall, the classical multivariate time series modelling has to be further investigated so as to overcome the limitations of ANN and PCR, including univariate time series methods in short-term prediction of air pollutant concentrations

Time series analysis of PM10 concentration in Parit Raja residential area

Parit Raja is one of the sub-urban area that rapidly grow due to its location containing industrial and education hub. Pollution from factories and the increasing number of vehicles are the main contributors of PM10. Since PM10 can give the adverse effect to human health such as asthma, cardiovascular disease and lung problem, appropriate action mainly involve short-term prediction maybe required as a precaution. This research was conducted to predict the PM10 concentration using the best time series model in Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Johor. Primary data was obtained using E-Sampler at three monitoring stations; Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (SMK) Tun Ismail, Kolej Kediaman Melewar and Sekolah Rendah Kebangsaan Pintas Raya. ARIMA time series model was used to predict the PM10 concentration and the most suitable model is identify using by Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). Prediction of PM10 concentration for for the next 48 hours at all monitoring locations was verified using three error measures which are mean absolute error (MAE), normalized absolute error (NAE) and root mean square error (RMSE). After comparing the time series model, the short term prediction model for station 1 is AR(1), station 2 is ARMA(1,1) and station 3 is ARMA(2,1) based on the smallest AIC value and the best time series model that used for prediction at Parit Raja residential area is AR(1). Since the best model was identified for Parit Raja residential area, PM10 concentration can be predicted using AR(1) model to identify the value of PM10 concentration in the next day

Modification of Montmorillonite by new surfactants.

The sodium Montmorillonite is not susceptible to polymer due to its organophobic character and has low basal spacing. This study reports on the effect of three new organic cations including Triethyl Amine (TEA), Tripropyl Amine (TPA) and Trioctyl Amine (TOA) on the basal spacing of the clay as indictors to the sociability of the clay to the incorporation of polymers. The Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was used to evaluate the incorporation of the three organic cations in the clay. The X-ray diffraction technique was utilized to indicate the basal spacing of the treated clay as a measure of the susceptibility of new organoclays. The FTIR, XRD and CHNS elemental analysis results shown that the three new organic cations acrylonitrile/montmorillonite were successfully incorporated in the Montmorollite clay. X-ray diffraction indicates that the basal spacings in acrylonitrile/montmorillonite of the treated clay with TEA, TPA and TOA individually increased by 14.2, 15.1 and 19.5Å, respectively. FTIR spectra illustrate that amine compounds were successfully intercalated into the clay layers